PEPPER, PEPPER, PEPPER......!!!

 Wonder what mischief the old buzzard is thinking about

Right now since we actually got a little rain, there is a lot of green stuff trying to come up and become a plant.  "Me thinks" it "ain't" going to happen, with this crew of equids running around eating everything in site.  Actually there is more greenery than they can consume and after a few days of no rain, it is starting to wilt.  But the donkeys are doing their best to eat as much as they can.

Last night at round-up, which is taking longer and longer every time, John finally got almost everyone in their pens.  Of course by the time that happens the good little boys and girls that came in on time have been in their pens for quite some time with no food forthcoming and get pretty vocal about it.  

Finally we were down to Pepper being the only one missing.  SIGH!  Went ahead started feeding the others.  While John parceled out hay, I went over to Burroland to see if I could find the old buzzard.  If he's down he's usually in one of the dust bathing areas, so I hit all those first.  When that didn't work I started following the trails, went all over the 20 acres and didn't see a thing.......well except for a rattlesnake that was slowly moving across an open area.  I got within about 10 feet of him and he never even acknowledged I was there, which was fine with me. 

By that time it was into dusk, headed for dark and John came over to help me look.  We were afraid it was going to get dark and we wouldn't have found him yet.  John went one way, I went the other and we kept crisscrossing paths, but no Pepper.  All of a sudden I heard a rattler and sure enough there was my little buddy, only this time he was coiled up and unhappy that I was about 3 feet from him.  I never saw him until I heard him, when I did a 180 and headed out......!!!!  

Still no Pepper, so we headed back over to the pen area to check down below the house again.  As I got close to the pens.............there was Pepper standing outside his pen, looking very PO'ed because the gate wasn't open.   John neglected to leave it open when he was delivering hay, so the old boy could just saunter in, if he did show up. 

We have no idea where he was, or where he came from, we do know we saw nothing of him after spending probably an hour looking for him.  We have talked about putting a bell on him.  The only way we could do it, would be to use some type of collar that would break-a-way if he got it caught on something.  Maybe something like a bungi.  I wouldn't be surprised if we did figure something out and put a bell on him, he would figure out some way to walk stealthy, so we couldn't track him.......LOL